Technical Field of the Invention
The invention is in the field of brackets and assemblies for plumbing installations.
Description of the Related Art
In making plumbing installations, waste pipes and supply pipes are often pre-fabbed or pre-assembled off-site, and then are installed together on a jobsite. Currently, contractors use inexpensive brackets to do this pre-fab work. Assemblies are fabricated in a shop, and then are shipped to a jobsite, where installers lift them into the stud wall and attach a mid-span support from the studs to the pipes. This method has been found to be the standard in many pre-fab shops throughout the country. There are many shortcomings in common products and methods for accomplishing. Among these are problems with a plastic bracket that comes in loose pieces and is time consuming to assemble, and that such a plastic bracket breaks easily when installing the supply line clamps over the pipes, and during the transport of the pre-fab assemblies to the job site.
Telescoping brackets are sometimes used that offer a mid-span support, but are sold separate from the clamps. These telescoping brackets also do not clamp the waste line.
Certain copper-plated steel brackets are time consuming to sweat/solder onto copper pipes. The brackets must also be separately attached to the waste pipes, perhaps with separate loose pieces.
In all of the above prior approaches, the contractor still needs to install a separate mid-span support from the pipes to the wall. This is generally fully done during installation, which can result in higher costs.
It would be advantageous to reduce the time it takes to pre-fab waste and supply pipes together. It would also be advantageous to reduce the time it takes to install the pre-fabbed sections into the wall cavity.